Capital Ships

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Capital ships were not in the original design documents for the game but, rather, were implemented along the way. [citation needed] The capital ships currently seen in JGE videos are about 4km in length [1]

PvE Capital Ships

A Mobile Battleship

AI Controlled - fun to blow up

Like Battle Stations, they have multiple weak points and layered defenses. Early on they will be killable by a small group but at higher levels will require full squads.

"We have one "docked" in one of the starting areas. Basically at some point in the near future it won't be docked anymore. Then it won't be unarmed anymore. Then it won't be invulnerable anymore, if you know where I'm going."-- Hermann Peterscheck– Codemasters Forums

"We have recently implemented the first capital ship into the game. While so far they will be [artificial intelligence] controlled, we’re working on creating some large scale battles that feature these ships. It’s really exciting and every time we see one of them in the game, the entire dev team comes up with some pretty creative ways to blow it up."-- Nicole "Awen" Hamlett Ten Ton Hammer

"It's BIG. Hermann zoomed out with his halcyon next to the cap ship, and the cap ship didn't fit on the screen, yet the halcyon was all of maybe 10 pixels total. Flying end to end looked to take about 15-20 seconds or so (in the newbie halcyon). One sector Hermann showed us had the wreckage of several of these cap ships broken up and strewn all over the place. LOTS of wreckage."-- Teeleton

PvP Capital Ships

In the Mechinar Sector, undocked

At this point in Jumpgate's development, capital ships have been implemented into PvP scenarios. One, in particular, was shown off at GDC in which they were used as launch/respawn points. GDC 09 also brought with it the announcement that capital ships will be immune to regular weapons, requiring that a squad bring a heavy assault vessel with them in order to take one down.

The latest targetable component on a capital ship, as of GDC, was the flight pod. Once destroyed, a faction was forced to respawn at the edge of the map in a repair/reload station.

"Of course, the next thing the people ask is, ‘Can I fly the capital ship?’ Then you get into a whole new realm of complexity,” Hermann stated. “If one player is gunning and the other is flying, what happens when one of the players encounters some lag? It’s a very cool idea, and I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to do it at some point. However, it’s just somewhere in the future."-- Hermann Peterscheck - Ten Ton Hammer

"People always ask if they can fly [capital ships]. Our response thus far has been no, but not because we don't think it's F**king cool to do so, but simply because we don't know how to rectify skill aim combat with auto-locking turrets (which I'm assuming capital ships need). If they are AI it's no big deal, but PvP makes a nightmare scenario. We've played with the idea of multi-pilot ships but it introduces "interesting" problems with latency so we'll have to see. In any case it might be a high on the list post launch feature as it is really really badass to see those suckers!”-- Hermann Peterscheck – Codemasters Forums

"There will be no multi-person ships available on release. Developers have stated time and time again they don't have plans on the table to add them to Jumpgate anytime soon. Though the Netdevil community employee did say it 'might be looked at, at a later date'."-- Nicole "Awen" Hamlett, Ten Ton Hammer

"It’s takes a lot of patience and self restraint to spend 50 iterations on a mouse flight mechanic when what you really want to do is add multi-pilot battleships. Giving in to that temptation opens you to the risk of having crappy flight controls for that mediocre multi-pilot battleship implementation."-- Hermann Peterscheck Ten Ton Hammer